Anne of Green Gables is just such a thing. I can remember borrowing that thick collection of video tapes from the library every so often; my Mom and I spending the better part of a weekend curled up with, perhaps grilled cheeses and tomato soup and sweet teas, and being schooled in the art of puffed sleeves and bosom friends and all things to fuel our "scope for the imagination."
Right now I can see my own little imagination-fueled girls outside this window as I type. Alysse is in her footie pajamas even though it is after noon, purple rain boots pulled over her white padded feet. Hope sports a feathered headdress leftover from her Peter Pan party, Maddie in a brown dress she felt looked most authentic. They have orange markered stripes, two in a row, under each eye. Hope is the woodcutter wielding two sticks she pressed together somehow, Alysse is grinding popcorn kernels and mud with a morter and pestle of sorts, and Maddie has the job of farming with a wishbone shaped stick scraping the ground. The tree near them blows free with blankets and pillow case teepees, favorite stuffed animal companions cheering from the top most branches.
I could not love it any more.
I am thinking this came from a recent trip to Williamsburg, VA where history came a little bit more alive for us all:
Their idea to pray inside the Jamestown settlement church. The cutest.
Quite often, however, imagination is not sparked by us tagging along on Daddy's business trip to some fantastic destination. It is in the every day, the play that happens around our house and in our yard and beyond. I know that many of the specifics they experience, Lord willing my memory holds up, will belong to my mind's eye and that for the girls it will be more of an overall feeling that they have about these growing-up years.
May those memories gather in their hearts and minds to create a risk taking, joy saturated, warm feeling created by the loveliness and important work of play. May such recollections and God's good grace fill in any place that a mistake or so may try to occupy.
More of those bits, should my mind's eye get blurry along the way.
:: Always up before everyone else, reading on the couch mornings.
:: Other sleepy heads that wake up to the smell of breakfast.
:: Lots of real snowmen outside; melted snowmen inside.
:: "Let It Go" ("Let it go-oooooooo!") dance parties in the kitchen.
:: Self announced dress-alike days.
:: U.S.S. Maddie and Beautician Alysse. Boxes and hair cuts (this time a pretend cutting- thank God!) have no limit to their imaginative qualities (two things which I am not always entirely patient about). :)
:: Birthday mornings, complete with poetry and whipped cream. As long as I can help it.
:Superhero lions watching cartoons.Completely normal around here.
:: Valentine sweetness.
Individual, mini bottles of maple syrup! Almost better than candy.
:: An eccentric cast of Olympians take the ice.
:: Stools and hankies turn tea party tables and table cloths. Bark turns into puddle capsized boats.
So much scope left to tap.
May we keep taking lessons from Anne (with an "e") every day we are gifted to see with childlike wonder.
~Katrina
